


Hexagons Have More Fun

by daisydiversions



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-29
Updated: 2008-02-29
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisydiversions/pseuds/daisydiversions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU wherein Fuji stays at Rokkaku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hexagons Have More Fun

Fuji smeared one last glob of purple sunscreen over the tips of Yuuta's overly sensitive ears

 

The sun was scorching and the air carried the heavy smell of burnt clay and failed grilling attempts, weighing heavily on sticky skin. A light sea breeze was content to laze in and out with the tide, but provide no true relief to the beach's patrons.

Undeterred, a large group of local kids lined a level length of sand, eagerly watching the older kids set up the boundaries for the impending sprint race between Rokkaku's volleyball and tennis clubs. The highly prized trophy conch lay in a place of honor under the umbrella Oji had pitched for himself and both sides eyed it hungrily.

Smiling at the growing enthusiasm, Fuji smeared one last glob of purple sunscreen over the tips of Yuuta's overly sensitive ears and stood up. Saeki followed, giving the sand around Yuuta's completely buried body a final pat.

"There," Fuji said with flourish. "Protected from all manner of things."

"You should be grateful, Yuu-chan," Saeki informed him, adding a pair of giant pink sunglasses that covered nearly all of Yuuta's face, "that we care so much."

Yuuta scowled and wiggle futilely under the mounds of sand covering his legs. The Batsu Maru shovel on his chest didn't even quiver. "I hate you both."

Swinging an arm over Fuji's shoulder, Saeki steered them towards the others and leaned into Fuji's ear. "Remember last week when I wouldn't let you crimp Yuu-chan's hair and send the pictures to a modeling agency?"

Fuji looked over his shoulder, forlorn. "Johnny's Entertainment is one star dimmer."

A seagull landed near Yuuta's grainy prison, and his and the bird's wide eyes met before Yuuta began to shriek and flail in earnest. "And such a lovely voice."

"Terms?" Fuji inquired, sliding an arm around Saeki's waist. 

"Wouldn't it be interesting if a freshman won the race and beat both captains?" Saeki grinned.

"Very interesting," Fuji agreed.

They stepped up to the starting line and positioned themselves. "Loser has to dig out Yuuta."

 

=-=-=-=

That Rokkaku was starting a first year was the topic of much gossip and mocking almost immediately after they'd registered. The old man had really lost his mind this time, was the general consensus, though most quickly added that they had no doubts about crushing the beachlings back to the surf even before this latest gag. 

Fuji smiled serenely at his singles debut, holding his golden ash racket in one hand, bouncing a tennis ball with the other. A fair wind rustled his hair back and Fuji beamed at his unimpressed opponent.

"This ball," Fuji informed him, "will disappear."

 

The whole 'genius' thing was admittedly Saeki's fault. 

As per tradition, a slew of neighborhood kids lined the fence behind their bunch, screaming their heads off in support of the Rokkaku regulars. It annoyed the opposing teams to pieces. 

"Wooo! Syuu-chan!!" Saeki yelled, half his hand through the chain linked fence. "Crush him into the dust! Show them that just because you look like an eight year old girl, doesn't mean you can't smash like a _fourteen_ year old girl!"

Fuji would merely smile and blow a kiss after a love game and Saeki would pretend to swoon into Bane's arms.

"Kou-chan," Yuuta implored, his pink cheeks suggesting he might soon die of embarrassment. "Please shut up."

"Don't worry, Yuuta. We'll do the same for you next year."

The look of terror on Yuuta's face was one Saeki deeply regretted Fuji missing. He turned back to the task at hand with renewed vigor. "Fuji Syuusuke. Rokkaku's _tensai._ "

A choir of kouhai joined him as Fuji made another top seeded team's vice captain cry.

It was a good day.

 

=-=-=-=

 

Tanabata that year was on a perfect, clear night, and they were far enough away from the food stalls and general festival commotion in town that the sky seemed to be made of thick midnight velvet, littered with bits of shattered diamonds.

"The stars are far," Amane stated, immediately snickering at his own rhyme.

Bane kicked him in the shin. "Not funny. Crap, what was Oji thinking giving you that crazy long racket? Any more missed balls to the head and you won't have any brain left to addle."

Fuji laughed, straightening the obi on Yumiko's old yukata, and settled himself next to Saeki on the blanket. Saeki wore a yukata also, only his was actually meant for someone of his gender, and the navy held a dark contrast to the new Rokkaku uniforms that Bane and Amane had refused to be parted from since the Kantou tournament. The retiring seniors had called them first years the future of Chiba tennis and Bane was taking it to heart. Yuuta had watched in sullen silence as they lost to Hyoutei in three straight matches before Fuji could even play Singles Two. He alone was in normal street clothes, and the scowl on Yuuta's face suggested that this was the story of his life.

Amane had sworn, in an unusual spurt of seriousness, that one day he would beat a _hundred_ Hyoutei players. Ryou indulgently patted his arm and told Amane that he was pretty.

Yuuta shifted uncomfortably from a nearby mound of sand, prodding the crabs they'd caught earlier that day from inside a cheerful yellow bucket, trying unsuccessfully to fight down his blush. Saeki and Fuji shared a knowing smirk. Amane's voice had been the first in their year to drop, and after a short, awkward period of scratchy, croaking and calling for _Kero_ bane, Amane's voice smoothed out to something low and attention grabbing.

Yuuta had not been able to look him in the eye since.

"Ah, baby's first love," Saeki sighed wistfully as Bane shot a couple fireworks a little too close to Yuuta for him not to shriek and hide behind Amane on reflex.

Fuji pouted and opened one of the bento they'd brought from home. Yumiko had come from her trendy Tokyo apartment for the festival and had made sure they wouldn't go without. Fuji's eye gleamed and claimed a wasabi maki roll. "I won't give up Yuuta to just any man."

"And I won't give _you_ up to just any man," Saeki returned empathically. "So, the three of us will be together until we die old men."

From behind Amane, Yuuta looked positively aghast, and Saeki wondered if Yuuta would ever figure out this is precisely the sort of reaction they were looking for. "No. Way. I can't wait to get away from you two."

Fuji sighed dramatically and pressed his face into Saeki's neck. "So cruel, my little brother. I suppose it's lucky then that my Tanabata wish is to become Saeki's lovely bride." 

"And it just so happens, my darling, that _my_ Tanabata wish is to become your lovely husband."

"Anata!"

"Syuu-chan!"

"You guys are making me lovely _sick_."

"Don't worry, Yuuta," Fuji assured him from halfway inside Saeki's yukata, "we'll let you be the flower girl."

Bane casually grabbed the back of Yuuta's shirt before he could spring forward, holding him back with little effort as Yuuta struggled and cursed. "Well, I asked for us to crush Hyoutei next season. Someone has to keep their priorities in check." He leveled a long suffering look at Amane. "This idiot asked to never run out of hair wax."

"Better to be waxing than whining."

Dolling out a swift kick, Bane rolled his eyes. "That one didn't even make sense, Davide. Not that any of them do."

"I--I got it, Hikaru-chan," Yuuta stammered, still trying to fight Bane's grip on him. 

Behind Amane's back, Fuji and Saeki gave Yuuta twin smirks. 

Yuuta looked as though his burner had been flicked up to a high boil, his cheeks blotched red and shoulders shaking. "Oh, SHUT UP. I WISH YOU'D JUST LEAVE ME ALONE."

With that, he ripped himself free of Bane's grasp and stalked down the beach. Yuuta's crumpled tanzaku paper fell to the sand and Saeki leaned forward to pick it up and deposit it and the others into the bucket with the crabs.

 _I want recognition of my own. -Yuuta-_ , Saeki couldn't help but read, and let out a heavy sigh. "How did that child get to be so sensitive? I thought we raised him properly."

"Saa," Fuji wondered. He was fiddling with the sushi, but made no move to eat any. 

Bane pulled Amane down onto the blanket finally, making his own grab for Yumiko's bentos. "No one can accuse the pair of you for neglect anyway."

"I should hope not," Fuji smiled, watching Bane forgo chopsticks and paw at the food bare handed.

"I'll go make sure he doesn't feed himself to a shark," Saeki volunteered, trying to right his yukata from Fuji's earlier groping, and trudged across the beach with his feet sinking deeper into the sand with every step.

 

Further along the shore, Saeki found Yuuta sitting on top of an abandoned lifeguard's post, no longer fuming, but with a posture tensed straight and jaw set. Saeki climbed up the side and threw himself next to Yuuta, sending him a disarming smile. Yuuta pointedly did not fall into the trap of looking at Saeki, and Saeki felt this is a victory in itself. 

"I'm leaving," Yuuta told him after some time. It seemed like he was being careful about saying it, as though something might explode if he touched it too hard or too fast, and Saeki thought it might be Yuuta himself. 

"Oh?" Saeki offered. He doesn’t want Yuuta to explode either if he was that set on controlling himself.

" _Yes,_ " Yuuta replied emphatically. "Yes. Entrance exams are coming up and my homeroom teacher says I'm enough to have some choice in where I go. And I want to. To go."

Yuuta turned to him imploringly then and Saeki had no idea what he wanted from him. He wasn't talking about going to spend the night at 'Sushi-kun's house. Yuuta was talking about _leaving_ , leaving. 

It was unthinkable, and Saeki couldn't even process it.

"Nee-san said I could stay with her in Tokyo, and there are tons of schools in Kantou with good tennis teams, and I could walk or get a bike and just-- I can't _be_ here, Kou-chan. It's suffocating. You two are suffocating." 

"I… know?" Saeki said unhelpfully when it was clear Yuuta wasn't going to say more. Yuuta's head were in his hands and he was out of breath, as though he'd been waiting to say that for eleven years and was expecting it to be something Saeki wasn't already perfectly aware of. It was just the way things were, how they'd always been and how Saeki had until this night thought they'd always be. "I mean, I can promise you it'll be different all you want, but we both know it'd be a lie. And if you expect me to choose between you and Syuu-chan, I'm going to push you off this stand and hope the fall fixes your head."

Yuuta eyed the potential drop with a grimace and huffed. "That's the point. Nothing ever changes here, and it won't unless I make it change."

"Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity," Saeki nodded. "But Yuuta you can't tell me you're-- you used to not be able to sleep unless Syuu-chan or I was next to you."

"I was a _baby_ ," Yuuta burst out. "I'm sick of being judged by everything I've done in my life up to this point, even before I was conscious of what I was doing. I want people to see me for who I am _right now_ , not eleven years worth at once." 

Saeki leaned back and let his legs dangle. "It's going to be really lonely. Starting out all on your own."

"I can manage," Yuuta said gruffly. 

"That's true," Saeki conceded, "You _are_ a Fuji after all." 

Yuuta crossed his arms and demanded, "So?"

Ruffling Yuuta's hair and getting an indignant squawk for his troubles, Saeki wondered what Oji would do. He pulled his legs crossways and put his hands on his knees. If Yuuta thought it would make him happy, Saeki shouldn't stand in his way, be it to Tokyo or Toledo or even the courts of Hyoutei. Besides, Yuuta wasn't a social creature. He'd be lonely and out of place, and after he got over his pride, Yuuta would come back home to them. Things would be better once it was where Yuuta had decided to be for himself. 

"Alright, I'll allow it." Saeki relented. 

"Great," Yuuta beamed, and that in itself affirmed to Saeki that he'd said the right thing. "So, you'll help me convince Aniki, right?"

Choking, Saeki grabbed onto the side of the stand to keep from swooning in fear as he imagined Fuji's wrath if he found out Saeki had encouraged his precious little brother's fantasy jaunt into the big city unescorted by Fuji and a short, thick leash. 

"Yuu-chan," Saeki said shakily. "I won't even admit to having this conversation."

 

Back at the picnic, the others were freeing the crabs, watching them shuffle disjointedly towards the rocks, disappearing into every dank, gritty crevice. Bane and Amane were finishing up the make-shift raft for the bucket so they could send their Tanabata wishes out to the sea like Vikings casting away a beloved comrade. It was sort of Romantic and Amane had sniffled for five minutes straight after Fuji proposed it. Bane ruined the moment by suggesting they light the whole thing on fire to continue the analogy and got a slap upside the head from Amane.

Fuji thought all wishes could use a little trial by fire, but refrained from saying so. 

Putting the slips of paper back in the bucket, Fuji laughed when he saw that he and Saeki really had made the same wish after all. 

By the time Yuuta and Saeki returned, they were heaving the whole thing into the water and pushing it out into the ocean for the sea gods to do with as they pleased. Bane saluted while Amane whistled Taps.

Fuji bumped shoulders with Saeki and took Yuuta's hand in his, and breathed in the sticky sea air as they watched their wishes wobble out of sight. It was going to be a good summer.

_I wish that we'll be together next year and for every year after. –Syuusuke-_

[Year 1 end] 


End file.
